Posted - 05/14/2007 : 09:43:47 AM I'm talking about knitting, though you can tell us your story about the other kind of love too if you like.

I knit a few projects before the bug really bit me - a baby blanket, a hat and scarf for my nephew and a doll blanket for my niece. At first it was just another craft I enjoyed. Then about a year or so after I learned how to knit I made my first pair of socks and that was it - knitting took over my life!

Susan

20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First)

llinn

Posted - 05/21/2007 : 08:41:26 AM I read them all and thought I was alone until the very last post and there was Martha. Just the same for me, I fell in love with it before I could do it. I watched my Aunt Alice make the loveliest things. She embroidered all the vestments and dressings for the altar at church. She knitted wonderful things, even beautiful afghans that were raffled off for the church and the Aged Women's Home. Grandma crocheted, mostly with thread, and made doilies. My mother knit, especially the annual pair of argyle socks for Pop-Pop for Christmas every year. I loved it all and still do. I've been a yarn junkie and fiberholic every since. Each time I learned to do something it was just incredible.

Llinn

knittingbaglady

Posted - 05/21/2007 : 03:51:36 AM When I was four and I saw a woman knitting on a bench in an old farmhouse/resort in Maine.

Posted - 05/20/2007 : 09:01:08 AM I think I realized I was hooked the first time someone offered to pay me to knit them something. It wasn't the income potential -- it takes too long for me to produce something to make it worth knitting things to sell -- it was the flush of pride I felt at having made something good enough that people would pay money for it.

jennyjo

Posted - 05/19/2007 : 10:49:07 AM

quote:Originally posted by operakaz

Sock knitting was my gateway drug LOL I intended to only knit socks...figured even if I went nuts buying sock yarns was better than going nuts buying sweater quantities of yarn...then I saw a sweater I had to knit...and the gateway opened *le sigh* LOL

Me too! My Grammy taught me to knit when I was 8 or 9, but I'd never really done much with it until a few years back when the self-patterning sock yarns first came out. I don't remember where I first saw them or heard of them, but socks became like an obsession. A ball of sock yarn doesn't take up all that much space, so what does it matter if you haven't gotten through all you have yet? Now that yarn (and the spinning wheels that followed) has its own room!

--jen, who has spent several hours today trying to reorganize said sock yarn

LaurieAdlerAnderson

Posted - 05/18/2007 : 11:53:09 AMI was 6 years old. It was 1960. I was a Brownie, ( a scout, not a baked good!) and we had adopted a Grandma from a nursing home, so we were making an afghan for her. My mom tried to teach me, but didn't have a whole lot of patience, so her best friend taught me (she was left-handed and I learned sitting across from her (!!?) The only yarn I had access to was Coats and Clark, and the only ones that interested me were all the variegated colors. Even then, I had a crazy color sense! Since that time, the knitter in me has ebbed and flowed--when my 1st daughter was born in 1976, I knit her a bunch of stuff, but I also learned how to make quilts and do counted cross stitch, needlepoint and wreath making. Oh, and also crochet. My last binge started in 2000, when I made myself a beautiful red sweater using Brown Sheep yarn...it rages now (the urge, not the sweater!) because child #1 has seen fit to actually bear a child--oooooh! grandchild knitting! What fun! I love knitting more than anything else, even though I do switch back and forth between the other things. Long live knitting and long may it reign!

Beware of dragons, for they are large and cranky, and you are small and taste amazingly good with ketchup

greyhound

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 9:25:24 PM My mom taught me to knit when I was 21 years old - I started a sweater (big first time project)and was going along and then I dropped a stitch didn't realize it till several rows later - I was told that I would have to rip out the rows - became frustrated - took it back up again 20 years later and have become addicted thanks to my neighbor in MI - after attending the Michigan Fiber Festival. Now living in AZ - tough to find unique yarns. Still knitting though!

linda knits

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 5:51:40 PM I knew I was hooked when I made my first scarf, then there was no stopping me.that was back in 1984. I love color knitting and cables. Linda

scraffan

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 3:51:13 PM I had finished my Masters in the Spring. During the Summer/Fall I had been busy learning new things at work.I found that even though I was busy during the day I needed/wanted something more than using the computer for a pass time.Went to a craft store and found nothing that appealed to me. A sales clerk suggested the LYS. I went with mixed feelings.

The owner of the store was there and she asked me why I was nervous and what I was looking for.

I wanted to try knitting again and I explained why I was nervous.

She helped me pick out a simple pattern that was a scarf with pockets and the yarn.

It took me a week or so to get over purling. It was as if I mastered purling I can master anything. That is exactly what I told my instructor and friend.

She said alright once you finish the scarf we can try new stitches.

It seems with each techinique and stitch I master the more I fall in love with knitting.Karen

yarnjunkie

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 2:20:08 PM I can't say I've "fallen" in love with knitting...it's been more of a "growing" to love process. I'd been crocheting for a couple of years when I asked a friend to teach me to knit back in 1999; just for the challenge of learning. Learned it, then went back to crocheting for a couple of years. Picked it up again after a move, but still just dabbled; a dishcloth here and there in between crocheting projects. Took a couple of classes with my teenagers, enjoyed it more as I went along, designed and made some scarves, taught myself socks, still just enjoying it, but only picking it up every couple of weeks or so. Last summer the relationship began to change. I discovered Ms. Harlot, discovered knitting books at the library, discovered the joys of different fibers than acrylic and cotton...(!!). By the fall, it was love. I still don't have time to knit as often as I'd like, so project progress is slow, but I prefer to think of it as a relationship built on a solid foundation of years of work, not an infatuation that will flame out quickly!

Marie

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 1:17:57 PM I knew I was hooked when, only in hindsight mind you, I realize that I had dragged a gigantic cone of imported Irish bainin for the Aran I was knitting into the labor room for the birth of my second daughter, (what was I thinking? don't ask...socks would have been too sensible) AND when I reflect back on taking along PRINCIPLES OF KNITTING, my "read" at the time over a period of months, to various doctor's appointments.

Marie

Knitterary

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 08:36:01 AM I knit on and off for about 20 years without it ever grabbing hold in that deeper sense. I knit a sweater here, a scarf there. I could put down the needles for months, even a year or more, and not miss them.

Then, about two years ago, something changed. I don't know why. My life was mostly stable and I wasn't under any particular stress.

I decided to knit a new cardigan for the fall, and went to the library to flip through knitting books for pattern ideas. Nothing was really grabbing me, until I saw a picture of a whole mess of straights in a vase on a window ledge. Like a bouquet of aluminum and wood and bamboo flowers. It was a beautiful photo and really spoke to me on some level I can't begin to explain.

That picture stayed in my mind as I was shopping for yarn and patterns. I ended up buying yarn for two sweaters. Up until that moment, I only bought enough for one project at a time. Those of you who know my yarn shopping habits will be shocked by that one.

I started knitting that cardigan (a failed project which ended up in the garbage can), and haven't stopped since.

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 07:44:26 AM I have been knitting for years and was taught by an elderly lady. Elizabeth Zimmermann had her TV program. Came out with the book,Knitting Without Tears, and I have learned much by doing her "ways"and use her ideas. Now I have all of her books and most of her daughter'sMeg Swensen. I have attended two of Meg's seminars. I enjoy workingwith wool yarn. I do my own sweaters, hats, Barbie doll clothes, socksand much more. Knitting is relaxing and your finished article isrewarding. If you want to e-mail to me, do so. I'll help any way I can.

Sorka

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 05:11:02 AM I knew I was hooked on knitting the second time around.. and with a little bit of a different method! When I pulled my first knitting loom out of the shipping box, and made a baby hat in a half an hour.. well that was it.. I haven't put down the looms, or the needles since!I'm doomed, dooooomed dooomed I tell you!

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 04:22:46 AM I learned to knit when I was about 8 - from my great-aunt. I loved her, so I loved that she taught me. I did the usual early pieces and then in college did many sweaters. Fun! For some reason, I stopped knitting and took on every other manner of craft while my daughters were growing up and I was a SAHM - things I called my "sanity-savers."

I was very intrigued with the new yarns of about 8 years ago - yes, many were novelty fibers. I LOVE texture and color, so combining textures and colors became a passion. To use them in unusual ways spurred me on, so that I was designing my own accessories and then selling them as people wanted to buy them off my body. It's been a great experience - and profitable in that it supports by obsession.

Posted - 05/17/2007 : 12:19:01 AM I taught myself to knit 20 years ago when I was recovering from a back injury. I was a former dancer and I needed something to fill my time until I was well enough to dance again. I liked knitting and it really helped to alleviate the depression I felt when I couldn't dance. I made 3 sweaters while I was recuperating, but once I started to dance again I didn't go back to knitting. Probably because at that time, sewing was my first love.

Fast forward 20 years and a friend invited me to join her knitting circle. I relearned how to knit and purl and after making my first practice swatch I was hooked. That weekend I bought the the yarn for my first project and by the next week I had knit the front half of my sweater. Of course I got oodles of support and encouragement from my knitting circle when I completed my first sweater and since then I've almost never gone a day without knitting.

Renee

To dance or to knit; choose both or nothing at all.

Bloomkitty

Posted - 05/16/2007 : 9:43:37 PM I've been knitting for less than two years and was hooked the day I learned. I'd been searching for years for a craft that was "me", and knew I'd finally "come home" after learning to knit. Just two sticks and some string -- can't get much simpler than that!

Posted - 05/16/2007 : 07:11:00 AM I taught myself to knit and crochet when I was about seven. I never got very good at it. After a year or so of toying with it I took a hiatus. A long one. Thirty years later a woman at my work gave a class and I signed up as a "refresher course." I thought it would be something to do occasionally, like my fits of gourmet cooking. But we started with socks, and after the first few rounds I was totally hooked. I've knit pretty much every single day since then, and spend part of each workday wishing that I was home knitting. Before becoming a knitaholic, I would never have believed that a hobby could be so all-encompassing: the shopping, the planning, the organizing, the arranging, the list-making, the online surfing/posting/reading, the dreaming/thinking about it, and of course the actual knitting. It has become an alternative life-style.

-Elizabeth in Alabama

baldocchi

Posted - 05/15/2007 : 9:48:57 PM I learned to knit in the 60s when we lived in France. It was required in school. I was dutiful and produced the requisite class pieces but wasn't in any way in love. My mom was discouraging also. She decided she was going to knit like her French friends but just didn't have the patience. She knit a sweater for my dad but decided that it was going to be good and warm. She doubled the yarn. By the time she had done with it, it could stand by itself in the corner. That's the last time I remember her knitting anything.

Back in the States and married, I knit my first DH a really nice Lopi neck-down, Fair Isle yoke sweater. It turned out great and I liked knitting better. Then I was pregnant so I knit the requisite layette items. DS was characterized as an "active" baby plus I had a full-time job so there went knitting for several more years.

Then last year I happened to walk into a LYS! What a revelation! So different from anything in the 60s or 70s, in France or the States! What colors, what textures, what fibers, what fun...!!!The people working there were so nice. "Sit down a spell, try this out, you like this yarn?, Do you remember how to cast on? here, take this pattern, we'll let you have it."

Then I found this forum. So much information. So many links to great resources!

Now, I'm in love!!! Now the sky (and my budget!) is the limit.

Nicole

If we don't get there together, we won't get there at all.

Knitfool

Posted - 05/15/2007 : 7:59:20 PM knitz2 I can relate.I have been knitting and crocheting since 4-5 years old, when my aunt's tought me but it wasen't love then it was more like something to do to fill up time, to figure out.It turned to love after my mom's death, it soothes my sole and keeps me going one day at a time.

Claudia

Live Happens, learn to deal with it!

knitz2

Posted - 05/15/2007 : 05:49:53 AM When two things came together: I realized I could visualize finished projects before I even chose the yarn (unlike any other hobby I've tried) AND when knitting saved me from depression following my father's death. these two things happened in rather close proximity so I can't separate them in my mind when I look back.